15 Things I Learned in 2007 - #9 You Don’t Have To Invest A Lot Of Money But You Must Invest Time

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Time to invest

Photo Originally uploaded by Brett Siegel

#9 You don’t have to invest a lot of money but you must invest time.

When I started blogging I told myself I was going to do everything I could to spend as little money as possible. Our family was in a very tight situation financially when I got started and I was determined to spend as little as possible. It’s amazing what we can do with two sticks (start a fire for those that have never been in boy or girl scouts ). At the time I didn’t know if it were possible to earn with out investing money in advertising or acquiring information, but it is. With the exception of purchasing domain name registries ($6.50 each for a year) and web hosting (at $10 a month) I have spent roughly $10 on advertising (tips using ScratchBack recently).
All other advertising and marketing my blogs was done through networking with other bloggers, in social communities and news sites and publisher directories . All research information was acquired by through search engines and information offer by others for free. I even got one of the best ebooks on affiliate marketing for free. I also used free themes that I personalized or modified.
Though I didn’t have to invest a lot of money, I did have to invest time. iwebis officially launched on May 1st of 2007 but the planning for this blog took a few months prior to launch. More time was invested in writing, networking and goal setting.
Now some people at this point are saying “Time is money”, right? Well for me and many other people in my situation, time was not money. Spending time on building a website with almost no overhead and the possibility (and now a reality) of making a passive income was and still it worth it.
So I am here to tell you that we don’t necessarily have to invest more money than purchasing domain names and web hosting but we must invest time.

How I invested my time this year.

1. Pre-launch planning - choosing a niche, purpose of the blog, marketing ideas, advertising options, income options.
2. Research - blog niche, competition, blog design, free blog theme search, domain names.
3. Networking - finding people with the same interests, joining social networks, reading and commenting on other blogs.
4. Blog Content - ideas for content, researching topics
5. Blog design - teaching myself basic css code, html refresher, comparing my blog design to others, planning for advertisement placement, tweaking like crazy.
6. Monetize - researching the best fit for my blogs, testing periods
7. Marketing - entertaining good and bad ideas, tried marketing ideas that failed, tried marketing ideas the succeeded, branding projects, contributed to social networks that fit the niche of each of my blogs.
8. Thinking - played everything in my head several times before tried it out.

15 Things I Learned In 2007 That Improved My Blogging and Increased My Income

#15 - Not all monetizing options are best for your blog.
#14 - Don’t be afraid to set goals and don’t be afraid to fail.
#13- Strive to become an authority.
#12 - Contribute quality content to other blogs and networks.
#11- Write down your ideas.
#10 - Content may be King but it’s not everything.

Until tomorrow